The GlenDronach Tawny Port 15 Year Old

60 ml cedar closet emergency stash bottle

Tasting notes:This dram is like digging through my narrow, but exceptionally deep cedar closet in which I’ve let the detritus of my rather interesting life accumulate a bit too long. On the open, it’s a paper bag filled with rubber bands that I briefly mistook for eels. In here, it could happen. And now, here’s a caramel coated mini wheel of Gouda (glad I wrapped that in plastic). Oh, so that’s where I hung that chipmunk sausage to dry! Man, after the time I had getting those little pieces of meat into those tiny natural casings, I would’ve been upset if I’d never recovered it. And now there’s a piece of kiwi bone china (I don’t have any idea what those last three words together mean, but damn, if they’re not evocative) covered with white sausage gravy with a faint fennel note hiding within. (At least this is from earlier today. Still, I think I’m going to need some bleach wipes for this.)

Taste the dram, and it’s like digging even deeper: I’m past all the suspenders now, and it’s pickled lemons, cocoa nibs, and steel-cut oats in a cider brine (it looks about ready now), alongside cardboard infused with pomegranate nectar and hummingbirds (never knew a hummingbird infusion could be so messy). There’s also some fermented sugar cane propped up against the cedar slats, and it is ripe: if it wasn’t already self-custardizing, I’d consider including it in my next batch of kimchee. Hey, what’s this Bonsai tree doing back here? And what are those on it, tawny port blossoms? Wonders never cease.

I’m almost to the back wall now, and as I finish this odyssey, it’s all velour track suits back here–and a lot of them. But they’re not just any velour track suits: they’re for the world’s hippest dancing gerbils as they get jiggy with it on my tongue. Amazing. Who needs to keep a diary when you’ve got a life capsule like this?

Rating:

On the scale of sausages you’ll never see at the market–The GlenDronach Tawny Port 15 Year Old is hummingbird sausage–Utterly maddening to make unless you’re blessed with “Lady Hands,” but the resulting product is just as delicate and subtle as you’d expect. Well worth the wait and the attendant difficulties procuring what you need to make it.